Spatiotemporal characteristics of gaze of children with autism spectrum disorders while looking at classroom scenes.

Takahiro Higuchi,Kazunari Kaneko,Kae Nakamura,Hodaka Kobayashi,Yoshitoki Yanagimoto,Yuko Ishizaki,Atsushi Noritake,Yoko Hoshi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175912

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who have neurodevelopmental impairments in social communication often refuse to go to school because of difficulties in learning in class. The exact cause of maladaptation to school in such children is unknown. We hypothesized that these children have difficulty in paying attention to objects at which teachers are pointing. We performed gaze behavior analysis of children with ASD to understand their difficulties in the classroom. The subjects were 26 children with ASD (19 boys and 7 girls; mean age, 8.6 years) and 27 age-matched children with typical development (TD) (14 boys and 13 girls; mean age, 8.2 years). We measured eye movements of the children while they performed free viewing of two movies depicting actual classes: a Japanese class in which a teacher pointed at cartoon characters and an arithmetic class in which the teacher pointed at geometric figures. In the analysis, we defined the regions of interest (ROIs) as the teacher’s face and finger, the cartoon characters and geometric figures at which the teacher pointed, and the classroom wall that contained no objects. We then compared total gaze time for each ROI between the children with ASD and TD by two-way ANOVA. Children with ASD spent less gaze time on the cartoon characters pointed at by the teacher; they spent more gaze time on the wall in both classroom scenes. We could differentiate children with ASD from those with TD almost perfectly by the proportion of total gaze time that children with ASD spent looking at the wall. These results suggest that children with ASD do not follow the teacher’s instructions in class and persist in gazing at inappropriate visual areas such as walls. Thus, they may have difficulties in understanding content in class, leading to maladaptation to school.

Highlights

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive and restricted behaviors [1]
The inclusion criteria for children with ASD were as follows: i) the children met the criteria for autistic disorder or pervasive developmental disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR)[1]; ii) the intelligence quotient (IQ) of children aged >5 years based on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Characteristics Sex, M/F Age IQ or developmental quotient Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) (DQ) CARS score PARS-TR peak score PARS-TR current score
To quantify the spatiotemporal pattern of gaze behavior in children with ASD and those with typical development (TD), we first identified these visual areas as regions of interest (ROIs) (Fig 1C and 1D)

Summary

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive and restricted behaviors [1]. We predict that children with ASD spend less gaze time looking at a teacher’s face and finger, whereas they spend more time looking at geometric figures drawn on a blackboard in the classroom scenes. They spend less time looking at objects pointed at by a teacher because of less joint attention. These behavioral characteristics in the classroom persist even in the higher grades, and children with ASD have difficulty in understanding the contents of lessons in the classroom

Participants

Ethical approval

Results

Discussion

Limitations